


Dean Winchester, Space Astronaut (10x23 Coda)

by castielswinchesters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10x23, Castiel's True Form, Coda, His Brother's Keeper, M/M, SPN - Freeform, Season/Series 10, Trueform Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:36:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4018267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielswinchesters/pseuds/castielswinchesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very delayed coda for 10x23, because the thought of Dean in space was hilarious and then it was sad. So I tried to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean Winchester, Space Astronaut (10x23 Coda)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamingStarkly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingStarkly/gifts).



_**The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. - John 1:5** _

* * *

 

After everything he’s been through, space doesn’t sound half bad. So when Death offers that option, he takes it. He is so tired, and he has been, ever since he clasped arms with Cain and the Mark oozed its way onto his arm, branded him. He’s been swirling with darkness, a howling vortex residing somehwere in the region of where his heart should be, for so long now, and he’s just tired. So he agrees. Space it is. Dean Winchester, Demon Astronaut. He’d laugh if he weren’t so fucking heartbroken. So instead he twitches a lip and faces Death.

But he calls his brother, first. Tells him he’s done. It’s over. He knows Sam better than to think that he’ll give up if he thinks there’s a shot, so they leave the body. It’s Dean’s only request. “Give my brother something to bury. Maybe that way he’ll get some peace.” Death had only quirked a brow at him, but acquiesced. “Somebody should.”

“It might even be you,” Death muses. Death smiled, and Dean felt the unique sensation of his soul separating from his body (though not for the first time – and honestly, in the long string of weird shit that is Dean Winchester’s life, this isn’t the strangest, though being launched into space by Death incarnate might be top five.) As Death guides him into the stars, Dean only has a second to look in on the bunker and see his brother and Cas. It hurts. It truly does. But not as much as being their death would. So he smiles, or whatever the soul equivalent is, and moves on. And then he is there, nestled in the bend of a nebula far away. Death does not say goodbye. Dean is fine with that.

Space is… lonely. He doesn’t know what he expected. But it is. Suffocating and isolated and dark, so dark. Like Dean himself. He noticed after a while that his soul is black, dark and thick and oozing. Fitting, he supposes, for what he has become. He isn’t used to incorporeal existence, but he thinks it’s okay. Even if he has to endure alone forever, at least he can’t hurt another soul. Time passes. Dean isn’t sure how much. Minutes, hours, what does it matter? He supposes time is irrelevant now, but still. Space ought to come with a television set or a radio or something, he thinks. Had astronomers been listening to the solar winds of the star Dean currently orbits, they would have been puzzled to discover that the solar winds sounded an awful lot like Kansas’ Leftoverature.

He thinks he must be going insane at about the time he hears his name. Sooner than he expected, but he accepts it for what it is and ignores the voice. But it doesn’t go away. Apparently the voice in Dean’s head is a bit of a demanding douche. And then he sees something that takes his breath away, or would if he had breath. Hurtling towards him at top speed is something so dizzyingly beautiful and terrifying that Dean knows it can only be one thing. And if that’s an angel’s true form there’s only one angel it could be.

“ _DEAN WINCHESTER_.” The voice sighs, and Dean doesn’t know how an angel’s voice can still manage to sound like he’s been gargling gravel even in incorporeal form.

“Heya, Cas.” Dean manages, hoping the sheepishness in his tone is conveyed. “How’d you find me?”

“ _YOU FORGET. I KNOW YOUR SOUL, DEAN. YOUR ESSENCE WOULD BE CLEAR TO ME ACROSS FAR GREATER DISTANCES THAN THIS_.”

“Jeez, Cas.”

“ _DEAN_ ,” the voice intones, and if Dean didn’t hate himself already he does now for the pain he can hear there. “ _WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS? WHY WOULD YOU GO?_ ”

“I - Cas, I had to. you know that. How could I stay? If I had stayed, I’d have killed you. I’d have killed Sammy. And who knows who else? I don’t wanna be that, Cas. I didn’t have a choice.”

“ _THERE IS ALWAYS A CHOICE_ ,” the voice says gently, “ _AND I MADE MY CHOICE A LONG TIME AGO. I SAW YOUR SOUL SHINING THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF HELL AND SAW SOMETHING SO BEAUTIFUL, SO STRONG, THAT NOTHING COULD DIM IT. AND I TOLD YOU I WOULD NOT LEAVE YOU. I WILL SAVE YOU, DEAN WINCHESTER. YOU ARE WORTH SAVING_.”

“Cas -” Dean can barely get through it, damn it, his voice is cracking and he can’t believe he can cry without eyes or tear ducts. But he pushes on, beacuse Cas is too damn good for him and always will be, and he needs to understand that. “Cas, look at me. I’m - whatever my soul was, right now it’s so blackened you couldn’t bleach it clean if you tried.”

“ _THE MARK HAS NEVER BEEN YOU, DEAN. THE DARKNESS IT BRINGS IS NOT YOUR DARKNESS_.”

And before Dean can think, before Dean can speak, a tendril of grace, glowing blue-white, has reached out and twined with the darkness, which latches on with greedy teeth and Dean’s holding on to it with all his might because no matter what else the darkness has made him do to Cas, it won’t make him do this, won’t snuff out Castiel’s light.

“ _LET GO, DEAN_.” Cas murmurs, and he does. God help him, he does. And the darkness recedes, and with a pulse of his grace Castiel sends it floating into the formless emptiness of the void of space. And Dean is tired, so tired, and he lets Cas wrap him in his grace and bring him to earth, settling him gently in his body before folding him into a gentle hug, a hand carding through his hair as Dean grabs the trench coat with both hands and holds on tight.

“Dean,” he rumbles gently, pressing gentle lips to Dean’s temple, “You are a good man. That darkness may have controlled you, but it was not you. You are the Righteous Man, Dean.”

And while once Dean would have argued that, right now he’s so weary it’s taking everything in him to stay upright, and if it weren’t for Castiel’s warm body holding him up, he doesn’t even think he can do that. So he gives in to the yearning ache that’s been building in him for years and he turns his head, meeting Castiel’s lips with his in a kiss that tastes of sweet freedom. For the first time in over a year, Dean is just... Dean. Just Dean, kissing Cas. Simple as that.

When Castiel pulls back, after a moment or an eternity, his smile is so blinding Dean thinks if there was ever one to chase the darkness away, it’s Cas. And when he threads his fingers through Dean’s, it really seems like everything will be okay. There will be a lot to deal with in the coming days - he’ll have to find Sammy, and he’s got a lot of apologies to make. But for now, he has his angel by his side, warm fingers entwined with his own, and it is enough.

For the first time in over a year, Dean Winchester knows peace.


End file.
